About Me-email is... grant.go@aol.com

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Open Letter To Christy Clark And Stephen Harper---Enbridge Is Dead

Today, Saturday November 16th/2013 thousands rallied against bitumen Pipelines in British Columbia, tens of thousands more rallied across Canada, but by far the largest protest was in Vancouver, there were thousands in attendance, people representing all age groups and all political stripes, there was NDPers, Liberals and Conservatives at these rallies, the issue of Alberta tar/bitumen pipelines threatening British Columbia`s rivers and streams and oil laden supertankers risking destroying British Columbia`s pristine temperate northern coastline crosses all political boundaries

And it doesn`t matter what decision or ruling the National Energy Board makes, it doesn`t matter if you Christy Clark pretend your 5 conditions have been met and accept the Enbridge pipeline, it won`t matter if Stephen Harper and his cabinet approve the project, it doesn`t matter if Allison Redford offers sacks of cash, the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline is dead..

We, we the people are fully aware of the seriousness of this proposal, Haida Gwaii and the Great Bear Rain Forest is sacred to our soul, sacred to British Columbia`s spirit, this area is Canada`s natural treasure and gift to the world and no one has the moral or legal authority to risk destroying, risk destroying the irreplaceable..

You Christy Clark witnessed a fracking protest 2 weeks ago in front of your home, just imagine if you said yes to Enbridge`s northern gateway pipeline

Concerned Canadians know that if Enbridge`s northern gateway pipeline was approved and built, a bitumen pipeline and tanker terminal in Canada`s garden of Eden no project anywhere, no industrial project no matter how hideous or environmentally degrading could ever be stopped, Enbridge northern gateway pipeline is ground zero..

Enbridge`s northern gateway pipeline is the hill British Columbians will die on, I can guarantee that hundreds, no, thousands will lay down in front of Enbridge`s bulldozers, and it saddens me to say this, there will be war in woods and no doubt, violence, whatever it takes and no that isn`t right, but left with no choice what are real people to do..

It`s not anarchy to fight for your children`s future.

The reason it saddens me is because what does it take to get it through Stephen Harper`s head, through Allison Redford`s head, what does it take for you Christy Clark to represent the vast majority of British Columbians, the 80%..

Enbridge failed badly at the NEB review, Enbridge has been caught lying over and over again at their NEB review, Enbridge is not in possession of any technology that can clean up spilled bitumen in rivers or oceans, the Kalamazoo river delta disaster makes it very clear, Enbridge`s track record reinforces this factual finding, a finding that Enbridge can`t guarantee anything, a finding that bitumen can`t be recovered or cleaned up once spilled in rivers or ocean, a finding that bitumen kills life, kills environments and kills spirit, a finding that no amount of money spent can replace or restore our northern coast once soiled with Alberta bitumen..

No Government can force a short sighted vision against the will of the masses if that vision means destroying life itself.

Enbridge can stop spending their money on advertising, as can the Federal Government because any decision but NO to Enbridge will be met with not passive resistance but a glorious battle fought with a human wall of resistance, will Stephen Harper send in armoured tanks to fire upon Canadians, will a proud Canadian military fire bullets into the heart of their fellow man, will oil companies guard every square inch of pipelines laid with militia, militia that`s prepared to shoot British Columbians, is that what this revolt will morph in to, a federal Government slaughtering their own citizens..

Dramatic, no, pragmatic, we in British Columbia have been inundated with fake reviews, stacked decks and predetermined outcomes and we won`t abide by or play this rigged game anymore..

We in British Columbia will not allow Stephen Harper and the province of Alberta along with self-serving multi-national oil companies to destroy our water and land and only so far can we the people be pushed, the message has been sent loud and clear and unless you Christy Clark stand up to Stephen Harper, stand up to Allison Redford and represent the wishes and will of the vast majority of British Columbians you and your Government might be advised to leave the province because any expected sanctuary will turn into a house arrest, there are those among us who will literally die to protect the future..

Sending the message to politicians and corporations at their homes will be the new normal.

The 10 year anniversary next month of the Bengal Lion Star tragedy and I
had to come to ground zero to see for myself, perhaps it was a mistake
to come here, from what I have seen i`m way too angry to cry and too sad
for fury, in fact I almost have that peaceful easy feeling.

How I miss my dad`s analytical explanation and mom`s hope springs
eternal talks, yet I fear that neither parent could explain away this
tragedy, 10 years later, 10 years of black death extending it`s reach.

Looking around by boat off Banks island, one mile from ground zero the
feeling is of the surreal, trees are still green but any ocean life or
bird activity is eerily quiet, no salmon fry swimming , no squawking
gulls just silence, for tens of miles in every direction the great kelp
forests are gone, who gave us permission to gamble and lose what we
didn`t own and what we could never replace, sacrificing little Fish lake
was a horrid environmental mistake, imagine deliberately destroying a
huge natural watershed for trinkets of gold, thousands of migrating
birds executed for the mere sin of just landing, how many species of
frogs or insects still get near or in the lake only to perish or leave
half dead, what insanity compels man to convert clear clean water into a
poisonous tailing lake devoid of life, but as horrible as the
deliberate execution of little Fish lake, the scale of the Bengal Lion Star oil
spill off Banks island in Hecate Strait is beyond compare, how is it
that my only terms of reference in attempting to describe the aftermath
is that of dead zones, in a way its very peaceful, no eternal battle for
life here, those days are long gone.

Only if I could turn back the clock, why did it happen, the Bengal Lion
Star should not have went out, a deep pacific low moving in, was the
Captain pressured to leave, why why why, even with two large commercial
tug boats assisting wasn`t going to stop the wreck, maybe if there were
extra support tugs who knows but when lead tug boat Kitimat queen
capsized in heavy seas nothing was going to stop the massive oil carrier
from grounding on White jagged rocks that stormy (March 14, 2017)
night, 30 to 40 foot high waves capped with fury pounded the Bengal Lion
Star on unforgiving rocks, section after section burst like
watermelons, spewing millions of gallons of tar sand oil, the 3rd
largest oil spill in the world, maybe if the oil containment teams had
gotten out here sooner but with storm force winds blowing for 2 days
along with extreme high and low tides, my god, oil sprayed the shore
line high on exposed rocks and layered thick into the lowest tidal
zones, mountains of Alberta bitumen flowing in deep water, who could
imagine the oil and heavy sheen would have spread 50 miles in different
directions over 2 days, coves, bays, narrow channels coated in black
death, as far as I can look in any direction this paradise is dead, who
knows what the bird count will ultimately be, millions of direct bird
deaths with millions more that died in subsequent migrations, birds all
along the coast found dead, birds with clear signs of contact with heavy
oil, the natural engine in this migration route blasted with Alberta
crude, indeed, the scale of the Bengal Lion Star oil spill can`t be
measured in millions of oiled birds or the 40 distinct salmon runs that
were decimated and or all of British Columbia`s wild salmon teetering on
extinction, the sea lions, otters, coastal bears, eagles, ferrets, no
salmon spawning led one extinction into another, we broke nature`s bond,
too many dead for one`s heart to count, oil stained carcasses feed
other animals that ultimately die too, black oil`s death-grip reaches on
and on, only with time, generational time, perhaps millenia before this
area recovers, can it recover, and for what, to spill another tanker of
crude.

I don`t what is harder to take, the fragile existence of a few northern
runs of salmon and southern Sockeye, it`s almost like the cycle of life
has been thrown out, this large swath of nature, thousands of square
miles destroyed forever, well at least for my lifetime, perhaps 6 or 7
generations before this area will become fertile again but with
continued oil tanker traffic when will black death strike again, even if
the shell fish recover, even if herring spawns again, the Orca will
never be seen again, the birthing females were first to die then the
small adolescent Orca perished, 2 adult males are all that is left of
the species, maybe mankind should have figured out how to start a new
Orca pod before destroying the only one we had, unique species and west
coast wildlife gone, in a blink, for all time, gone, why didn`t we learn
from the Valdez disaster, there is no going back, First Nations have
mourned, the northern and island tourism industries decimated, maybe I
should have fought harder against the National review 15 years ago, 10
years out from this disaster and Hecate Strait still lay mortally
wounded, you can still smell crude oil, I can only think of Charlton
Heston`s Planet of the Apes movie when he sees New York`s Statue of
Liberty and realizes that it was mankind itself that burned mother
nature, this area is no longer worth fighting for, top scientists are
mostly in agreement that outside of decades of time there is nothing on
scale that can be done to remediate the damage.

It appears the only ones left fighting about the Bengal Lion Star are
the litigants, where have we seen this picture before, the Exxon Valdez
law suit still lingers unpaid(40 years later), the Liberian registered
Bengal Lion Star oil tanker had but minimum insurance, $200 million
dollars yet the insurance has been contested, Bengal Lion Star hadn`t
paid premiums in 2 years, Honshu commercial carrier insurance company
have claimed bankruptcy, between the Province and Ottawa more than $14.9
billion has been spent on clean-up and species mitigation, First
Nations, affected business`s and local town`s folk have law suits filed
worth more than $15 billion dollars, everyone suing and litigating for
compensation on something no one can return, Enbridge pipeline inc
washes their hands of any responsibility, Shell, Exxon Mobile and the
Chinese petroleum company are all pointing fingers at each other, owners
of the Bengal Lion Star blame the escort tug company, tug company
blames act of god and file for bankruptcy, how long will these trials go
on and who will ultimately pay, what price, what price to return nature
to the way it was, all this pain to secure dirty Alberta crude oil to
China, oil use falls for the last 7 years, a dying product needing
desperate tyrants, we sold out nature on British Columbia`s wild west
coast for a handful of pesos, how can ancient dregs of plants take so
much away from present and future life cycles, I can`t shed tears
anymore, my life, my personal battles, millions of wasted words warning
of potential harm or should I say risk management, I `m too old to
repeat the warnings and too tired to muster passion, the battle for
Haida Gwaii is over.

Even the First Nation`s blockade attempting to stop the very first oil
tanker, 8 First Nations elders gave their life that day, not near enough
pressure to stop that massive Vessel, oil tanker Shell diamond and
its Canadian naval escort, dugout canoe versus high-speed frigate,
symbolic but futile, the time to stop Enbridge was before it started,
certainly native voices on opening day weren`t going to stop it, you
can`t stop $5 billion dollars spent, never-the-less, January 13/2016 was
the day the first super tanker left Kitimat, thousands of small protest
vessels, nothing, not even Greenpeace and Suzuki foundation`s
concentrated efforts could stop the Stephen Harper Federal Conservatives
and the Gordon Campbell Christy Clark B.C. Liberal administration from
rubber stamping this project from the git-go, proceeding at full speed
behind closed doors, no matter how much evidence anti pipeline
opponents, scientists, biologists and environmentalists put forward they
were all but ignored, the NDP government vowed to stop the completion
of Enbridge if they were elected in 2013, was the fix in, too much money
invested to stop, too big to fail, needed economic growth, jobs jobs
jobs, yes I heard everyone of those excuses justifying the completion of
Enbridge, what jobs, imported foreign workers building the pipeline and
120 permanent after construction jobs, was it worth it.

Madness, I knew something really big would happen, not the 5000 barrels
that spilt into the Skeena river, not the 50,000 barrels dumped at the
port of Kitimat but something epic, mathematicians also knew it was
coming, not if a big spill would happen but when a spill would happen, I
can still hear Christy Clark talk about risk management, the best
corporate spinners hired to say we can manage the risk, how come no one
asked how do we manage armageddon, how do we clean up, how do we create
more Orca, how do you bring back thousands of square miles from the
dead, I wonder what Gordon Campbell would say today, Adrian Dix, the
rejected NDP leader stated he regrets that the NDP didn`t do more to
stop Enbridge, Gordon Campbell is long since dead, yes Stephen Harper
and Gordon Muir Campbell I pass blame on to you and your complicit
Cabinets, your legacy, Enbridge, bankrupt utilities, a dismal health
care system, a dead central coast and slow dying life cycle, well, no
one is listening to me, not the Governing federal Conservatives, not
Premier Gordon Coons of the newly elected Refederation party, no, no one
wants to listen to the left wing, after the BC Liberal led economic
collapse, the seeds of P3s, IPPs and insider deals dominated, it didn`t
matter who was Government in British Columbia, so many bad deals were
signed, how many can the court overturn, the extent of the economic
damage that came to fruition, what happened, like the Spanish flu in
1919 that killed millions, no one talks about the harm Gordon Campbell`s
corporate Government inflicted upon us, the extent of one way contracts
that ate up every Provincial dollar and more, I can`t help but think
back to our 2010 Olympics, the pride, the I am Canadian attitude, Super
Natural British Columbia but just a few short years after the closing
ceremonies we have poisoned interior lakes, lost countless wild salmon
runs to fish farms and now the third largest oil spill in the world, a
death blow to our BC Coast, a massive spill in our migration engine.

Just picture heaven covered in oil, and what hurts even more, the people
of BC don`t seem to care anymore, in the latest public opinion poll by
Ipsos Reid job creation and big industry are more important than the
environment, 67% for jobs and 16% say protect the environment, it`s
times like this when I stare across at Mc Caully island or look into
Norway inlet, smell the oil, I see the end of the world being played
out, there is no shoulder of comfort to lean on, no soothing hugs that
can squelch my silent anger, 576 successful departures from Kitimat, 576
loaded oil tankers that safely managed the inside passage, risk
management, reward versus risk, despite 5 years of cruise ships not
plying the inside passage, despite the loss to tourism, despite a
sterile ocean desert, despite the tiniest of recoveries on the outer
edges of the spill zone, despite of everything tanker traffic is
predicted to triple over the next 3 years, an insatiable Asian appetite
for oil and now that paradise is lost there is nothing left to fight for
and no reason to stop, perhaps other Edens can be spared.

7 comments:

Elwood
said...

Grant, you are on a roll. One investigative article after another. And that is why I have told many others to read your articles and they are also impressed! They have told me that you have completely shamed both the Sun and TV news. Imagine that!

And don't worry about some phony Ipsos poll. We all know what Ipsos told us about the May election.

Rich Coleman has already thieved, treed land on on Vancouver Islands ALR, for a Real Estate venture did he not? Just who, gets the timber? Who gains the lands? This is very similar to, Campbell's theft and corrupt sale of our BCR. Who got the priceless Real Estate, that went with the BCR?

Communist China also wants the mines on Vancouver Island as well. There are said to be, 18 mine permits on theIsland. Perhaps that is where the rumor came from? 3,500 more Chinese miners on their way?

Enbridge has chosen a limited partnership....is to limit the exposure, of the company investors, not to make good on a, catastrophic oil spill12/07/05 business.financialpost.com

Romanian people are saying get off our land Chevron, get off our land globalists, get off our land Rothschild zionists!

Common people peacefully demonstrating against NWO expropriation of Romanian private land for fracking and cyanide gold mining. Detonator wire for shale blasying on private land rolled up and turned into police.

Waking up has jumped another arch bridge across the canyon of sleep and gathering groups are manifesting at key issues all over the place. The Twitter Snark, initiated by J.P (jerks and pricks) Morgan, Chase (them down and bind them) was hilarious; skewered ruthlessly by wordsmiths. In various cities around the world people are massing for all sorts of intelligent reasons to express their dismay and resistance to the hideous and banal lies that have been the general public's daily bread for so long. Obviously it's all gone up a notch in recent times and the awakening is increasing.